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Let’s say you have a bully in your life. Or maybe you just
know of a bully. This person may be always on the attack. Or perhaps they only
bully when they feel threatened. In any case, when you even so much as think of
them you are feel fear.
This fear does not come from them. This fear is because of
beliefs in your own mind. This person is a symbol of the guilt and fear in your
own mind. Unconsciously you recognize the motivation for their behavior is
guilt and fear. And you can understand this because you are like them. You understand
being defensive when you are afraid. So what you see in them is a projection of
your own guilt and fear. They are a mirror of your mind and this is the actual source
of your fear.
So how do you move past projecting fear and increasing it in
yourself? You bring your unconscious beliefs to conscious awareness. You do
this by asking yourself, “Why do they behave this way?” You can answer this
because you, too, are human and you understand human behavior. …

When I was very young I realized that I didn’t feel love
when others loved me but rather when I loved. This is why I was a nurturer. I
had learned, though not in these words, that what I give I receive.
When I was twenty I became a student of A Course in Miracles and read that lesson in those words. But I
made the mistake of thinking that ACIM could not be talking about a lesson I
had already learned. Helen Schucman was in her fifties when she scribed ACIM.
Certainly she had to have already learned this lesson? Maybe this meant
something else? So I took the lesson deeper and learned that it was saying, as
it says elsewhere more plainly, that I can only give to myself.
My mistake was thinking that I could not know something at
twenty that someone at fifty had yet to learn. Of course we do not all learn
the same lessons in life. And even when we do we do not learn them in the same
order. A twenty year old can know
something that someone at fifty has yet to learn. I was young and inexpe…

“He must learn to lay
all judgment aside, and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance.”
(M-4.I.A.7)
The above quote is from the Development of Trust in the
Manual for Teachers of A Course in
Miracles where it lays out the stages through which a student will go. This
refers to the fifth stage, the “period of unsettling”. But I’ve always found
that sentence to be vague. In my translation of ACIM into plain, everyday
language I translated it as: “Now, to attain
Complete Peace, you must learn to lay aside the personal mind and forgive in
every circumstance.” (M-4.I.A.5)
This was to make clear that “what he really wants” means peace; that laying judgment aside means
laying the personal thought system aside because it is always evaluative (judgmental);
and exactly how this is done (forgiveness).
Peace is always here. So “asking for Peace” really means
being willing to let go of that which is not Peace. When not-Peace is released
(forgiven) Peace remains.

Usually I limit what I put out through my newsletter and
blog to those things related to the concepts and practice of finding inner
peace through an awareness of Truth. But in my work one-on-one with clients I
often find myself reassuring and giving practical advice about very worldly
things. Lately I have had to reassure and suggest courses of action to help my
U.S. clients deal with their anxiety after our recent national elections. I
find I’m repeating myself several times a day so I decided I would just put
these ideas out there in one fell swoop.
(If you voted for Donald Trump or are not a U.S. citizen you can
disregard this email or just read the spiritual practice advice in the last two paragraphs).
The reassurances:
If you voted for Hillary Clinton remember you are not alone.
In fact, you are with the majority of voters. She won the popular vote by what
may turn out to be a significant number of votes. (More on recourse for this
below). On the surface this may not seem comfo…

This was not the article I intended to send today. But I
know that many of my readers, all over the world, are upset about the results
of Tuesday night’s election in the US. And those results did not happen in a
vacuum. Sure, there are always political swings one way or another and wars and
financial crises, etc. But right now those things are happening on a global scale
and affecting far more people than usual. The world goes through this kind of
global upheaval now and then and it is intensely uncomfortable when it reaches
your part of the world. Some of my readers, I know, live in parts of the world that
have been convulsing for a while. Maybe you have never known much but chaos.
But most of my readers are in the West and are used to stability. Paradigm
shifts are rare in the modern history of their countries. It is much nicer to
be past it and reading about it in history!
But here we are. And what are you to do to deal with the
stress? Of course the size of the stress does not re…

Back in the day my thing was not dwelling on the past. It
was living in the future. Some of this was goals and plans. But most of it was
just fantasy, even fantasizing about one day being at peace. But either way it
was not being here, now, the only time in which it is possible to be at peace.
The personal thought system is always about the past or
future or just elsewhere. The “elsewhere” thinking can be dwelling on something
that is not in front of you, like a completely made up time, place, or story;
or something going on in the world or someone else’s life. This was common for
me, too. So when I found I was in the future or elsewhere and I wanted to be
present I’d bring myself back into the room. I’d remind myself that this is
where I am now. All I have to do is deal with what is right in front of me
right now. And any lessons I have to learn are right here.
To do this I’d say to myself, “Come into the room” and then
I’d make a point of looking at what was in the room with me. It…

I have been a student of A Course in Miracles since 1984, a life coach since 2000, and a mentor for students of A Course in Miracles and 4 Habits for Inner Peace since 2006. You can learn more about me and what I offer at my website, www.acimmentor.com.